Concern for long-term availability of nonrenewable resources has fostered proposals for substitution with renewable resources. Forest products could become the basis for materials substitution and production. Further feasibility studies are needed to determine the technical, economic, energy, and environmental aspects of substitution. (MR)

Reforestation is desperately needed in India. Three-fourths of the country's ground surface is experiencing desertification, and primitive forests are being destroyed. Reforestation would help moderate temperatures, increase ground water levels, improve soil fertility, and alleviate a wood shortage. In the past, people from the United States, such…

Presents findings of National Wildlife's annual analysis of the state of the nation's natural resources, subjectively based upon personal interviews, news reports, and the most current scientific studies. Concludes that the status of wildlife, water, living space, and soil is worse with minerals, air, and soil the same. (DC)

Dozens of countries have decentralized at least part of their natural resource policies over the last two decades. Despite the length of time that these policy experiments have been in force, there is little agreement about their effectiveness. We argue that part of this ambivalence stems from three limitations of extant studies, suggesting that…

This guide contains six elementary grade units which focus on environmental concepts considered of major importance by the agricultural personnel of the Dominican Republic. Each of the units shows a cumulative and sequential building of these concepts. Unit 1 (grade 1) focuses on the basics of plant and animal differentiation and on the properties…

Tropical forests cover 20 percent of the Earth's land surface, but they are rapidly disappearing, with some estimating the loss of 7.5 million hectares a year. This bulletin provides a set of key facts relating to this problem. It details: (1) factors involving the rate at which the forests are disappearing; (2) some of the effects of these losses…

Presented is the Eleventh Annual Environmental Quality Index, a subjective analysis of the state of the nation's natural resources. Resource trends are detailed for wildlife, minerals, air, water, soil living space, and forests. (BT)

Over time, scientists, technologists, and resource managers in affluent countries have devised and institutionalized methodologies for exploiting and managing natural resources in their own environments with considerable success. In doing so, they have provided models, at least of development and affluence, that the less developed countries seek…

Because of increasing population and industrialization and decreasing supplies of natural resources, the need for sound conservation practices has become paramount, particularly within the last decade. In addition, the process of urbanization has limited the contacts large numbers of children have with the outdoors. Education must assume a…

Designed to help in the development of an educational program about the value of rain forests, this handbook presents a condensation of issues, facts, and concepts. The handbook is divided into three parts. Part one introduces the rain forest ecosystem and provides conceptual background material needed in the determination of problems, the…

This document deals with efforts aimed at reforesting large areas of degraded lands. It includes sections on: (1) tree cover trends; (2) fuelwood challenges of the future; (3) the need to supply industrial wood; (4) stabilizing soil and water resources; (5) forests and climate change; and (6) mobilization for reforestation. (TW)

Describes how environmental problems in developing countries partly arise out of lack of development. Emphasizes that environmental education is critical under these conditions. Argues for the systematic integration of economic and environmental plans for various regions. (TW)

Discussed is the continual depletion of the world's natural resources and the plea of conservationists. An examination of the dialectic nature/nurture controversy is used to see whether this may account for the state of disharmony recorded between man and nature. (KR)

The second of a series of annual reports designed to provide a global assessment of progress toward a sustainable society, this publication monitors changes in the global resource base (land, water, energy, and biological support systems), focusing particularly on how these changes affect the economy. Included in the report are news on innovative…

The first of a series of annual reports for policy makers, this publication focuses on evaluating changes in the interplay between the world's changing resource base and the economic system. Following an overview, content is divided into 10 additional chapters covering population stabilization, the world's dependence on oil, soil conservation,…